Sudan's Foreign Ministry denied political interference in the handover of a Turkish businessman to the Turkish authorities, in its official first reaction to his arrest on Monday.

The spokesman of the foreign ministry, Gareeballah El Khidir, said in a press statement yesterday that the ministry had nothing to do with the arrest of Turkish opposition leader Memduh Cikmaz. It was a “purely security operation carried out by the security authorities in the country”.

The state-run Anadolu news agency in Turkey claimed that Turkish and Sudanese intelligence agents arrested Cikmaz in a joint security operation and handed him over to Turkey on Monday.

Anadolu reported that Cikmaz is believed to be a financier for Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric based in the United States whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed coup in Turkey. He had gone to Sudan in January 2016 but sources told Anadolu he continued to send millions of dollars to the movement.